A tourist town with a housing crisis is to bring in a planning consultant to ensure that the local authority, "not the speculators and the rich auctioneers", have the ultimate say in local planning.
The decision by Killarney UDC to appoint a consultant to draw up a master plan has come in the wake of "acute disappointment" at failing to purchase a 15.4-acre parcel of land in the town centre last week, despite bidding £4.7 million (€6 million) at auction for the property, a sum far in excess of the £3.9 million market price. The land was sold for £4.8 million.
There were claims by councillors of receiving strong and irate phone calls and being put under huge pressure by residents opposed to the council's bid for the land at Countess Road and the proposal to build 150 houses.
Developers, as well as some residents, were making it impossible for the local authority to acquire land for housing, councillors and officials claimed.
Speculators and rich auctioneers were watching the draft development plans and snapping up the land in advance of everybody, despite the fact the town had a growing number of homeless, Cllr Sean Counihan said.
He suggested the council buy land first and then rezone it.
The council chairman, Mr Michael Gleeson, said he had considered his position after failing to purchase the Countess Road site, such was his disappointment.
"The difficulty with acquiring land is almost insurmountable. Housing is the major item on the agenda month after month. Land in Killarney is fetching the highest prices in the entire country, despite any talk of recession," he said.
The town manager, Mr Tom Curran, said he would insist that the full 20 per cent, more than three acres of the Countess Road site, enough for over 30 houses, would be sold back to the council for straight social housing.
Cllr Sheila Dickson, who received a number of irate phone calls, said the council was "being boycotted from buying land".
An anonymous letter had been circulated warning residents in the locality their properties would be devalued by 50 per cent if the local authority built 150 houses there. Attached were the names and telephone numbers of each councillor, she told the meeting on Monday night.
The meeting was told that Killarney had an approved waiting list of just under 400 for housing, its highest ever. There are also hundreds of people waiting to be assessed.
At present the council was able to build only 25 houses a year because of its inability to acquire land.